Quotes About Symbolism

Flowers don't tell, they show. That's the way good books should be too."--Stephanie Skeem. Author of Flotsam

And there above all of these shops hung a blood soaked sign: a red hand, the hand of a child that was neither male nor female and yet roused feelings of the most dejected and criminal love

It astounds me that out of all the flowers in the garden, the rose would fall in love with the thorn.

Dreams can range from the meaningless to the prophetic

While I slept you stood in the colorful night market with pyramids of bright fruit piled high Where those who loved you, rushing back to their intimate stalls, held out pears that had been dreamed for you And would the dream pear not come gladly once it knew this was you wanting to take it in? The dream pear chose reality, wanting your mouth as I did - Honestly, it was happy to be bitten.

The symbolism of a belief can survive far longer than the belief itself.

once you get past the scales and the blindfold, Justice is a woman with a sword.

The leaves were still on the trees, but were becoming dry, perched like birds ready to fly off.

So familiar that it didn't even register in the conversation; but it did reappear when I laid it out on the table of my dreams.

If Lincoln freed the slaves and preserved the Union, how come 'Lincolnesque' just means tall?

I view each world religion, including Judeo-Christianity and Islam, as a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe. Knowledge of the Bible, one of the West's foundational texts, is a dangerously waning among aspiring young artists and writers. When a society becomes all-consumed in the provincial minutiae of partisan politics, all perspective is lost.

Psychoanalysis [...] overestimates the linguistic character of the unconscious. Dreaming is a pagan cinema.

The symbolism seemed so apt. The same technology that can propel apocalyptic weapons from continent to continent would enable the first human voyage to another planet. It was a choice of fitting mythic power: to embrace the planet named after, rather than the madness ascribed to, the god of war.

While the content of many dreams seem haphazard, others are remarkably well structured; these dreams have a remarkable resemblance to drama.

Then, if we really want our celestial neighbors to know how far we have progressed intelectually, we should have included pictures of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy

And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again, and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this-kitchen-candle...

I believe everything is a metaphor for sex.

Oh, Brown was our lion and Tubman our fox, great-grandson!

tricornered headdress.

A poem is a piece of semiotic sport, in which the signifier has been momentarily released from its grim communicative labours and can disport itself disgracefully. Freed from a loveless marriage to a single meaning, it can play the field, wax promiscous, gambol outrageously with similar unattached signifiers. If the guardians of conventional morality knew what scandalous stuff they were inscribing on their tombstones, they would cease to do so immediately.

The resurrection for Christians is not just a metaphor. It is real enough, but not in the sense that you could have taken a photograph of it had you been lurking around Jesus's tomb armed with a Kodak. Meanings and values are also real, but you cannot photograph them either. They are real in the same sense that a poem is real.

Why people wanted to dance whenever it got dark was beyond him. Somehow, the two seemed to go together, like bees and flowers, or flies and dung. Darkness and dancing.

Really? A Confession flower. Why would it be called that? Because a confession is a revelation of the truth. Truth is pure. White is pure. Thus the name.

Hat = wizard, wizard = hat. Everything else is frippery.